HOMELESSNESS IN SUMTER
Breaking old habits $1.50
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2015
SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894
5 SECTIONS, 36 PAGES | VOL. 120, NO. 73
Narcissi-stick? Photo device that allows you to take wide-angle, group shots on your phone is now all the rage C5
DEATHS, A6 and A9 Rosa Dantzler Clarence Hill Charlie Nelson John W. Barwick Sr. Carolyn J. Best
Phyllis B. Blake Margaret T. Dieter Addie Moses Loretha S. Stukes
Ministries help man working to turn life around
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KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM
Anthony Gordon used his hands to beat people to get what he wanted when he was young. Now he uses them to pray and work his way out of homelessness.
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles about the homeless in Sumter.
BY GRAYSON RUSSELL Special to The Sumter Item
F
rom a certain window on West Oakland Avenue, one can see the boarded up doors and façade of an abandoned home. In the
early mornings and late evenings, the shadows of vagrants and those fallen on ill-luck are seen coming and going in the winter twilight. No one knows their stories or why they are there, only that it is cold and, with nowhere else to go, for
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them, this is home. Across the street, the story is not much different for Anthony Gordon*. He is homeless, too, but he boards with a small group of men who are actively trying to overcome their past and present circumstances so that they can move forward in life. Gordon has heat, run-
ning water, plenty of food and a warm bed. At the age of 51 and newly released from prison, he sees this as the final chance in his life. Growing up in Brooklyn, Gordon learned to street fight at an early age. While harmless in the beginning, it soon precipitated into habit, a muscle memory of swift and often direct violence. “I don’t know how many dudes I fought back in those days. Too many; not enough,” he says. About the same time, and with other misguided neighborhood children, they banded to burglarize factories and stores, and to fight off rival block gangs with homemade nunchucks, pieces of chain and baseball bats. By the time he was 26, in college, and with his firstborn son at home, he drifted into cocaine use he said he used to study and stay awake. He switched from burglary and street fighting to forging documents and DJing in nightclubs during the early years of hip-hop. As to his cocaine use, he says, “I worked it for a while, but it wasn’t long before it started working me.” That was 25 years ago. Gordon, now on parole and working full time, looks back on those years running with dope pushers as a time he is now trying to buy back for himself. In 2005,
SEE HOMELESS, PAGE A6
Plenty think roads must be fixed, but no 1 plan emerges COLUMBIA (AP) — Lawmakers in South Carolina can’t go to the grocery store without constituents reminding them how bad the roads are. The leader of one of the most vital companies in the state told business school students that South Carolina’s highways are a disgrace. The new House speaker said extra money for roads is the most important priority in years. So getting more money into South Carolina’s highways, roads and bridges is a certainty this legislative session, right? Maybe not.
The devil is in the details. The plan that got the most traction in the Senate last year called for raising the state’s gas tax. But Gov. Nikki Haley has said repeatedly she can’t support any plan that just raises taxes. A special House committee wants to put a proposal before South Carolina voters in 2016 to raise the sales tax 1 percent, while lowering the gas tax. Just days before the 2015 Legislative session starts, there is no plan that all lawmakers are rallying around. The proposals by Rep. Gary
Simrill’s special committee to increase the sales tax to pay for highways, turn more roads over from state control to the counties and reform the Department of Transportation dominates that body. But its support outside the House is less clear. “The Senate has 46 plans,” said Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney. And Haley likely has her own plan coming out before the end of the month. There is the constant competition from other needs. The Highway Patrol wants more
troopers. The Department of Social Services needs more money to hire additional case workers. Prosecutors want more money to handle domestic violence cases. But road funding has moved to the top, thanks to pressure from the business community, because South Carolina lawmakers almost always list economic development at the top of their goals. The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce is calling for an increase in South Carolina’s gas tax — which has been at 16.75 cents a gallon for
nearly 30 years — as part of a broader plan. The South Carolina Alliance to Fix Our Roads, made up of 100 businesses and their associations, plans a social media blitz as the session begins, telling people how much extra they pay in car repair bills and other expenses because of the deteriorating roads. “They’ve got to do something significant,” Alliance Executive Director Bill Ross said of lawmakers. “I don’t anticipate they will come up with $1.5 billion of additional revenue. That’s dreaming.”
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